‘Initiative in Iraq is with the Islamic State, not with Washington’

If the Islamic state doesn't have ambitions to go after Jordan or Baghdad, the Pentagon feels the US can live with Iraq as a weak mini-state, Brian Becker from the Answer Coalition told RT.

RT:According to a leaked classified US military report, sending
advisers to Iraq would put them at risk from Islamists who are
said to have infiltrated the Iraqi army. Does this give
Washington a legitimate excuse for not helping Baghdad in its
fight against the 'Islamic State' group?

Brian Becker: The Pentagon and perhaps the White
House are seriously conflicted about what to do in Iraq because
there is no easy solution. The US fractured Iraq, it fractured it
along sectarian lines when it invaded it in March 2003, and then
armed Shia and Sunni groups, used the Kurdish regional government
as something of an extension of American power in that area, and
it divided and then destroyed the Ba’athist army, the Iraqi Army,
so they had to start from scratch. A major factor, a major sort
of feature of any modern state is the ability of the ruling class
of any society to control its army, and it’s clear that the Iraqi
government does not control the Iraqi Army because it is now
divided along sectarian lines.

RT:The US is calling for the formation of a
unity government, saying this will help end the bloodshed. So
does Washington see no future for the current cabinet?

BB: The country has become so fragmented because
of the invasion of 2003 and then the resistance and the way the
US government has a deliberate occupation strategy as a military
strategy attempted to defeat the resistance, based on funding
Shia groups, Sunni and Kurdish groups and having them fight each
other. In other words, a classic page from the divide and conquer
tactic, but now there is not much there. The Washington
politicians can say to the Baghdad politicians “get it
together, form a unity government”, but right now it’s not
so simple because of the way the country has been fragmented. If
Maliki desired to do it, maybe he can do it, but he is reliant
completely on the most hard-lined Shia militia, that has been
historically trained in Iran, so he doesn’t see any hope, any way
to win over the Islamic State or others and he isn’t making much
of an effort, he is hunkering down and the Washington options are
very limited right now.

RT:To date, the US has spent some 25
billion dollars on equipment and training for the Iraqi army.
Why, then, is Baghdad finding it so hard to defeat the
Islamists?

BB: The current army lacks national cohesion;
it’s not a coherent or cohesive force because of the sectarian
fragmentation of the country. Again, the principle tactic of the
occupation strategy by the US when it couldn’t defeat the armed
resistance. So we have a situation now where these forces in Iraq
are greater than forces of national coherence or cohesion. And
you have the Islamic State which was again really funded and had
arms funneled to it by Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, and of
course behind the scenes the US in the past three years and they
got strong in Syria. So now it’s like the sorcerer's apprentice,
they have conjured up forces that they can no longer control, the
unintended consequences of this completely reckless and criminal
strategy are playing themselves out. And of course the Iraqi
people and Iraq as a nation are the big losers.

RT:Iraq is on the brink of collapse. Why do
you think Washington's not taking any decisive steps to help
drive the 'Islamic State' group out of the country?

BB: I think what the Pentagon is determined is
if the country is in de-facto partition, Baghdad is under control
of the Maliki government, the central government, and the
southern part, predominantly Shia part, is one part of the former
Iraq. And then you have western north under control of the
Islamic State. If they have only local ambitions, if they do not
have ambitions to go after Jordan or take Baghdad, and then you
have the Kurdish regional government in the north acting
functionally as an independent government, I think that Pentagon
feels well. Iraq was a fairly strong regional power, now it’s a
weak mini-states, we can live with that.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.